Canadian Railroads > West Toronto - The View From the Tower and Merrilees

I'm starting this as a new thread as most people will have moved on from Marty Bernard's post of July 11 concerning Two Towers, at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4336300.
One of those (Roger Puta's first photo) was CN's West Toronto tower, sitting in the NE quadrant of the diamond. I thought a photo of the context might be of interest, plus some shots of locomotives in Merrilees' yard, three taken from the tower.
1. This photo is from June 16, 1978, showing #663 bound for London on CN's double track Weston Sub, headed away from me. Leading is RDC-2 6207, trailing are two unrecorded RDC-1s, at 1138. The double track running left to right is CP's North Toronto Sub. Slicing across the northwest quadrant is CP's Mactier Sub, headed for Sudbury, continuing under the lead truck of the trailing Budd and headed to the east side of CN's West Toronto tower in the distance. The way it curves just at the tower is clear in Roger's photo. There's a CN station just beyond it. Coming in from the right, just off the scene, is the connector from the east on the North Toronto Sub, to get trains to and from the Mactier Sub out of Agincourt Yard. You'll see it in subsequent photos.
2. From the previous year, June 11, 1977, I saw these bright yellow diesels in the distance from the diamond, and walked up to the tower to see if I could climb the steps for some photos. The tower operator obliged (this was 40 years ago, remember!), so I shot a pair of NW2s, 103 farthest from the camera (look at Roger's photo and you'll recognize the brick house - prime real estate! You can also make out the switch points, where the Mactier Sub, coming off the Galt Sub at CP's West Toronto station, meets the east connector.
3. This is NW2 100; origin of both units unknown to me. The different spark arrestors are an interesting detail. I acknowledge these are not prime roster shots, but will give you some idea of what this area was like. Two more photos to follow, to complete this follow-up thread.

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4. Lurking deeper in the Merrilees facility was SW1 353, which for some reason I think may have been a Lackawana or EL unit at some point. I don't know where that hazy memory comes from, as I have nothing written on the slide.
5. For hardcore industrial lovers only, this shot shows what you were faced with from ground level. The chain link was tight to the plant trackage, so you couldn't use the old trick of taking off your lens hood to poke your 55 mm lens through the links. This is NW2 103 again, shot across the rails of the Mactier Sub, whose convergence with the east connector is again apparent. All Merrilees shots are the same date; nothing was there to be shot in 1978. How'd you like to live in that house if they fired up the 100 & 103 and let them idle for a while to warm up? As a modeller (if you are one), would you ever run a tail track in an locomotive dealer's yard right next to a house, squeezed in next to a mainline? Thanks for putting up with less than stellar shots of a cramped facility.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/17 23:38 by feclark.

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Well done. Good coverage, well documented.

KG

The rain gutters on the cab of the 100 and 103 suggest that they are ex Reading.

Alec

100 and 103 have that Reading Company appearance - drip strip over the cab.

These are ex RDG 100 and 103.NW-2s built in 1947. 103 went from Merrilees Ltd. to US Steel's Fairless Works, then to Warner Sand and Gravel near Morrisville,PA. It was donated to the Reading Technical and Historical Society and was restored to it's original livery @1992. Here is a shot of it at Leesport,PA. Thanks for posting these.

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That two story brick house belonged to Andy Merilees, he stored his collected railroadiana in the house.
After his passing the majority of the documents went to ExpoRail in Quebec.

The property for his company used a very small geographic pad as illustrated in these photographs.

Suspect with the construction of the railway interchange underpass at West Toronto the property was either
expropriated or sold. Either way nothing remains today.

perklocal Wrote:
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> These are ex RDG 100 and 103.NW-2s built in 1947.
> 103 went from Merrilees Ltd. to US Steel's
> Fairless Works, then to Warner Sand and Gravel
> near Morrisville,PA. It was donated to the Reading
> Technical and Historical Society and was restored
> to it's original livery @1992. Here is a shot of
> it at Leesport,PA. Thanks for posting these.

Thanks, and to the other two respondents, regarding the origin of both 100 and 103, and subsequent history of the 103.
Fred

Thumper Wrote:
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> That two story brick house belonged to Andy
> Merilees, he stored his collected railroadiana in
> the house.
> After his passing the majority of the documents
> went to ExpoRail in Quebec.
>
> The property for his company used a very small
> geographic pad as illustrated in these
> photographs.
>
> Suspect with the construction of the railway
> interchange underpass at West Toronto the property
> was either
> expropriated or sold. Either way nothing remains
> today.

Thanks for that historical/biographical detail; now that layout makes more sense.
Fred